AuthorTopic: 1 Year on after pre-purchase and still no "game" development :( (Read 31097 times)

I don't want to come off as ungrateful for all the work you have done on the engine and editor but i think it's time you did some work on the game itself. 1 year on and my player char isn't even there anymore when i press 8 never mind being able to do anything. Seriously i think its about time you did some work on the game i pre-purchased not just on tweaking your engine. On another note where are the 3d trees you posted a topic about nearly 2 years ago(May 25, 2011)?

Again i understand that a lot of work had to be done to get the engine, editor and importer working right and you have done a great job, but for some time now it just seems to be tweaking of the engine and adding in un-necessary things like rocks while nothing has been done in regard to the actual game. In the next six months i would like to see a fully animated char able to interact with the environment in at least some of the ways that have been talked about. The engine is good enough as it is(if you add in those trees ) for you to make an alpha of the game. Plus if you start giving us a game to play then more people might buy it...

"Perhaps this speaks to some larger trend within society today... A prevailing desire on the part of indie developers to recreate the entire world into one where you can charge more than $15 for your game design degree coursework." - Yahtzee

You bought into the alpha testing of the engine. Whenever the game is done, you have it. They are doing things at their own pace and trying to please mufti-national conglomerates who want this engine for military simulation.

Afik kickstarter isn't an option for these guys atm though. But getting a game into here will do loads for sales and then they could employ some others like with minecraft. He sold over 1 million copies at 15 euros each before he hired anyone, and that engine is cak, but it's a great game.

I hope this isn't vapourware like so many other games because of all the work they have put in. I just think its time to change focus to the anteworld game so it will bring in more cash so they can hire more people so they can speed things up. After all it was over a year ago that this section of the forum came into being and they started selling it. They are in danger of someone else beating them to it and anteworld turning in to yet another procedural full world game rather than one of the first. After all, the engine has been public for quite some time now and game devs do look about to see what others are doing. I know of several procedural world games in the pipeline(some stalled due to funding, others well on their way).

Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying they are lazy or anything( i only have to look at how many updates they do to see they are not). I just think they need to start making the game. Tweaking, refining and fixing the engine can be done when they have more money coming in and more(some) staff.

You bought into the alpha testing of the engine. Whenever the game is done, you have it. They are doing things at their own pace and trying to please mufti-national conglomerates who want this engine for military simulation.

not exactly.. "The demo comes with the whole planet Earth that can be explored in a free-camera mode or in a 8-wheeler truck. People who like it and/or want to support us and the development of Outerra engine can buy the alpha release of Anteworld at a discounted price ($15), half the amount for the final release. "

My point is thus-far there is no alpha of the game, there's just an engine.

Let me say that I can understand the frustration, we are well aware that only a once there's an actual game we can be getting a bigger exposure and all that.

OT was always primarily developed as an engine, because obviously using it for just a single game would be a waste. However, developing an engine with this ambition is by no means an easy task. Normally it would have been developed in secrecy and revealed only a moment before becoming ready, but of course that would require a large amount of funds and contacts throughout the industry, which we didn't have.

With Anteworld and the tech demo release we wanted to show people and developers that:

this tech itself is not a vaporware

allow people to get their hands on it early, play with it and provide feedback

also get some additional income so we are able to continue without selling souls to someone

We could not be selling it as an engine to the users, and we knew that we needed to make it a game to get people interested. As it was released, we thought mainly the people who wanted to support us and the development will be buying it, and it's indeed so for most. That doesn't mean we aren't on to making the game - we definitely do, but we still had a huge amount of work to be done on the engine functionality itself before we could proceed on to the game. It's expected that once there's an actual gameplay it will become more widely known. Right now we are mostly attracting tech enthusiasts and simulator people, which make a relatively tiny part of the user spectrum.

You must realize that the games you are comparing us to use existing engines, they can focus on the game itself as they don't have to deal with the engine development. Planet Explorers uses Unity, and that means they can kick start fast, but they can never reach the scale with it (they don't intend to, which is absolutely ok).

If we wanted to make just another game on a stock engine, it would be already released, but it wouldn't be able to perform as OT does. Plus we don't want to make just another game limited by the capabilities of common engines. Do you?

Right now the development goes in a couple of directions:

engine work that's necessary in order to be able to implement game functionality, all the scripting and physics stuff

actual game play functionality, or something close to it (coming next week a release with FPS mode and explosives/rt craters)

work needed for our licensees that provide us the income we need to continue working

The past year was mostly the engine work, we weren't happy with the progress presentable to our users. This year should bring much more active content, please be patient with us a bit more - we believe the end result will be worth it, and OT will become the basis for many games/sims.

This is a chance for engine development to step up a notch or ten! I for one know not of the backend workload that Brano, Angrypig, and whoever else working on it, is under but I do know that evolution of this kind of tech is at the next phase. You know, we all complain when something is missing this and missing that as well as not being scalable for more advance tech in the future, well, now you have an opportunity to embrace it and get excited that there's something being developed that will allow a real sense of freedom in the virtual world, one that no scripted game could allow because if the less superior methodology behind it.

I know for a fact from my Biome research alone that the texture work alone is a huge undertaking not to mention the physics, modelling, and terrain elements and their integration with each other.

If you want instant gratification to move a character and shoot someone then you might find those already made scripted games suitable. This however, my friends, is something worth waiting for as you will hardly find anyone out there with such ambition, knowledge, and skills to create something you are actually asking for. Most are commercially driven in that there's always something to stop development if it is not in the business model. This is a more eclectic approach whereby the Devs are considering whatever they can to make this engine as real as it can be; now that is a true Indie Developer way.

I cannot say any better than this; good things come to those who wait, and if you don't want to wait, then you will miss out on something great! Your support will help move this project along much faster than without the OT community merely by the feedback alone.

I think that while OP has a valid point in some respects, let's not be too hasty. The work of Cameni and Angry Pig is pushing us towards a quantum leap in what is possible in games or sims. When I payed up for the alpha I was well aware that this could take years to come to fruition due to the magnitude of the project and the relatively tiny dev team. Even if it takes 5 more years I will be happy if what is available at the end comes even close to the ambition of the project. Its a real game changer in my opinion and I would rather slow but steady progress than rushing it and ending with something far short of expectations.

As long as new contents are added, I don't really care that much about a game. Of course I want a game some day, but there's no reason to rush it. Anteworld has much more features today than it had on day one, and explosions and craters next week will be awesome

thanks for your reply cameni. i am glad to hear that you have been working on gameplay elements and that we will be able to start testing them soon.

The reason for my post is that as the engine has been public (very public with all the youtube videos) for quite some time now and that another team of more people could beat you guys to it. A quick search of youtube and google brings up loads of other engines that have similarities to your engine or game concept, maybe not as sophisticated but there still there, i can only guess as to what is being developed in secret. But i do know that devs often look at others work and emulate if not outright ripoff the ideas. With all the work you guys have put in i don't want to see you get left behind because of the simple fact that 2 people can only code so fast.

Just a suggestion but just for now i think you should pick an interesting island somewhere of a reasonable size, say a couple of hundred Square k and flesh out the biome and gameplay so you have something more to sell so you can get more staff. With that the rest of us can post comments/videos/twitch streams everywhere and get it to go viral.

Personally I like Outerra mainly for the way is developed/presented.For me, its killer feature is that Developers stay in contact and instantly react to feedback.Almost a year after I've purchased it, it definitely worth the money paid for it.

I think it's now up to us (users) to fill this world with entertainments and create a game from it. And I'll stay happy if developers will just continue to add features and tools for us to make our "contribution" more available and easy.

As an examples of such conributions, I'll leave this here:

The only thing that I could suggest (request) now, as a feature that could bring more game into it, is Multilayer.

Just a suggestion but just for now i think you should pick an interesting island somewhere of a reasonable size, say a couple of hundred Square k and flesh out the biome and gameplay so you have something more to sell so you can get more staff. With that the rest of us can post comments/videos/twitch streams everywhere and get it to go viral.

No, no, no.... Hate you for that. Get yourself a Microsoft Flight... You'll get your island

Sorry if text sounds aggressive, it's not meant to. It's just I (Hope that most users does) see Outerra as a Sandbox for game creation.So never wait a game from Outerra developers. However, as mentioned previously, I expect it from others (Me, You, Outerra users, 3rd parties).

Just a suggestion but just for now i think you should pick an interesting island somewhere of a reasonable size, say a couple of hundred Square k and flesh out the biome and gameplay so you have something more to sell so you can get more staff. With that the rest of us can post comments/videos/twitch streams everywhere and get it to go viral.

No, no, no.... Hate you for that. Get yourself a Microsoft Flight... You'll get your island

Sorry if text sounds aggressive, it's not meant to. It's just I (Hope that most users does) see Outerra as a Sandbox for game creation.So never wait a game from Outerra developers. However, as mentioned previously, I expect it from others (Me, You, Outerra users, 3rd parties).

1. I find flight sims boring as watching paint dry. I know quite a lot of you don't but that is a small market. The concept of anteworld will have a much bigger market. 2. I'm not talking about outerra, i'm talking about anteworld. The suggestion is so they aren't daunted with fleshing out a shit load of biomes, and the suggestion isn't for them to leave it at that either. It's just a stepping stone to the full game that they have envisioned. It is for all of us to be able to show it off and get them some customers so they can employ more people.